Holby City fuels unrealistic expectations

28th April 2010

The Royal College of Nursing conference has heard that television series such as Holby City are fostering unrealistic expectations of what medical care can achieve and lead patients to seek legal redress when ‘miracles’ do not happen.

NHS figures show there were 6,080 claims for clinical negligence in 2008/09 and 3,743 claims of non-clinical negligence, both up about 10% on the previous year. The conference heard that nurses are spending so much time filling out paperwork to avoid being sued that it is taking them away from patients. In 2007/08 the NHS spent £807m settling claims.